VGMdb's scope has been an often-debated topic since its inception. While we began as a database for video game music, that quickly expanded in 2009 when we reformulated as "The Music of Visual Arts and Games." The reason for the rebranding was because our love of game music crossed over into adjacent genres, particularly anime and manga. The last decade has seen continual friction over what "visual arts" really mean, and what albums are eligible. This was additionally hampered by a set of rules that were difficult to find, enforce, or even explain. In addition, our interests and coverage have expanded organically over the years, but this hasn't officially been addressed Given these circumstances, we were long overdue for a formalization of our scope.

The following is the first candidate of the new scope for public comment. I plan to leave this open until discussion ends, incorporate any needed changes, then announce it on the front page. I expect maybe a week for this process.

The overall effect of this re-scoping is a major expansion of what is officially eligible here. This is countered with 1) tighter guidelines on who is allowed to submit in these areas, and 2) expansion of the site-filters to artist and calendar pages (and possibly to product pages in the future) so that you only see the content that interests you.

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Category 1 - Albums related to Primary Visual Arts

Games

• Music from console, computer, handheld, cabinet, slot, tabletop.
• Official and unofficial arrangements of the above.
• Albums related to products spun off from the game series.
• Chiptune and derivative works.
• Example1, Example2, Example3, Example4

Japanese-style Animation (Anime)

• Soundtracks, vocals, image albums, drama, talk, OP/ED.
• Albums related to products spun off from the anime series.
• Example1, Example2, Example3, Example4

Western-style Animation

• Mostly soundtrack and vocals exist for these.
• Traditional animation, but can include mixed live actor and animation.
• CGI animation, but not when mixed with live-actors.
• Example1, Example2, Example3

Category 2 - Albums related to Secondary Visual Arts

General Doujin scene

• Includes the Comic Market and M3 events
• Happy Hardcore
• Bemani-related stuff
• Example1, Example2, Example3

Manga

• Image/Character/Vocal/Talk Albums
• Light Novels
• Radio Show
• Movie/TV spinoff soundtracks
• Movie spinoff of Western comics generally not eligible (category 4).
• Example1, Example2

Idol-based Multimedia Franchises

• Fictional Japanese multi-media idol groups that span genres.
• Example1, Example2

Non-Traditional Animation

• Covers non-traditional animation styles like clay-mation, stop-motion, silhouette, cut-out, etc.
• Example1, Example2

Live-Action Visual Arts

• Music from certain live-action works that include storytelling with stylized or abstract costumed characters.
• Eligibility includes Tokusatsu, puppetry, and some kinds of old children's programming.
• Obviously, everything is a visual art, but this category highlights selected ones that are 1) not covered comprehensively elsewhere, and 2) adjacent to our other interests here.
• Example1, Example2

Audio Dramas

• Audio drama series featuring illustrated characters.
• Example1

Events

• Music produced for an event by the organizers, such as themed goods for conferences, performances and and tournaments
• Eligible events should be related to visual arts.
• Example1

Category 3 - Albums that fill Composer/Arranger Discographies

If an artist has a composer or arranger credit for BGM in a Primary Visual Art (Category 1), then any album on which they are credited in any non-referenced role (i.e., the credit is not "blue") is eligible provided it is not in the Forbidden Albums set (Category 4).
The old subjective "ratio" rule will no longer apply.


Category 4 - Forbidden Albums

Mainstream western music.

• Including rock, rap, indie, alternative, country, jazz, classical, and many other genres.

Mainstream western film/tv soundtracks.

• Same here.

These are very well thought out, I like the organization into categories a lot. This should make it easier to understand overall. A+.

Looks good to me. It looks like category 2 greatly expands on the allowed live-action stuff, so I assume albums like these would be good to go because of their composer/arranger links? I have them, but have yet to submit them.

For example:
https://www.cdjapan.co.jp/product/HHR-48
https://www.cdjapan.co.jp/product/PCCR-641
https://tower.jp/item/1818339/

Puppetry... does that mean that X-Bomber, Thunderbirds and Dark Crystal are now allowed in the db?

They would be eligible under category 3 if composers or arrangers from category 1 are involved, or eligible under category 2 if they spun off from manga.


Yes, those would now be eligible except for ones that are in category 4 (mainstream western releases.)

Awesome. I have inadvertently been preparing for something like this.

As I was saying in another place, the way it's currently worded doesn't account for possibility that an actual well-known video game composer scores something in the realm of Western mainstream. While it's expected this prevents vast discographies of Zimmer, Giacchino and similar artists, a potential U.S. TV show scored by Jesper Kyd would also be forbidden which doesn't make sense to me. I think cases like these would merit an exception from Category 4 and as such should be mentioned in the guidelines. Just to be clear, I'm talking about things that could go to Category 3.

I've added an exception clause to the cateogry 4 rules, which should cover the handful of albums that are already in the database, plus anymore that staff decide on.

Generally? When would they be?

As I said on Discord, I feel these two parts are problematic.
I get that the original focus of the site was for game music, which is (or at least was) mostly BGM, but this whole topic is about the expanding of scope that has happened since then. I'm not sure why a composer role is given that much more importance than a lyricist or performer role now. Even if we just consider the composing role, someone who primarily composed Category 1 songs wouldn't be eligible for Category 3, but composing one 15-second little bit of BGM would suddenly qualify them.
I also understand that just singing one song for a game or anime shouldn't mean an otherwise unrelated artist should get their whole discography on the site, as that would include far too much general J-Pop. But IMHO other works by composers, lyricists, and even performers, who are largely known for their Category 1 work should qualify, even if they haven't composed any BGM.
I feel a subjective "ratio" could be a better system after all for these artists, instead of (or perhaps along with) the BGM qualifier.
And what of instrumental versions of vocal songs, that are used as BGM in anime? That sounds like BGM to me, so should qualify, but really the only way to know if an instrumental track was used in such a way would be to watch the anime.

edit:
And as an example of kind of the opposite...
Koji Makaino has composed BGM for several anime, and so should fit in Category 3, allowing anything else he's worked on to be included... But he has also composed hundreds of non-Category-1 songs, which according to the proposal should now be fair game for the site. While I personally wouldn't mind seeing all that here, I expect some others would.

As with every place the guidelines have a little "softness", staff discretion will be the determining factor.

Just to summarize, yeyry is proposing that we change

Quote:

If an artist has a composer or arranger credit for BGM in a Primary Visual Art (Category 1), then any album on which they are credited in any role is eligible provided it is not in the Forbidden Albums set (Category 4).

to

Quote:

If an artist has any credit in a Primary Visual Art (Category 1), then any album on which they are credited in any role is eligible provided it is not in the Forbidden Albums set (Category 4).

This will basically open up eligibility to nearly all vocal albums and singles that were produced in Japan. I would like to hear more opinions on whether we should go this route.

As for re-introducing the subjective ratios -- that is how we have done it up until now, and it has been unsatisfactory. When I queried the discord channel, the most common opinion was that the quantity of Category 3 albums on a discography page didn't bother them as long as they could filter them out when they wanted to, and that it was nice to see them when they wanted to branch out into exploring and purchasing other composer works.

That's why this thread is here -- if anyone does not want this behavior, and they are unsatisfied with the content filter's capability to remove what they don't want to see, then they should speak up here.

EDIT - Strike part that I misunderstood.

Definitely not. Please note that we also consider programmer, mastering/mixing/recording engineers, etc. as artists. So this opens pretty much everything.

No, I had assumed that wasn't what was wanted:
But I do think how "easy" it is for composers is odd compared to how "hard" it is for lyricists/performers. A ratio system may be too subjective and hard to quantify... I don't think an objective system that achieves what is wanted is impossible though.
What about instead of one credit, someone needs more? For example:
If someone has 3 different albums (in any role) they are counted for Category 3. This may be problematic if one song ends up on many albums, so how about 3 songs/tracks and 3 albums?
Maybe just any number of albums for 3 unrelated products?

Something along those lines should avoid including artists with only a very fleeting connection to Category 1 (e.g. 1 song) but still not exclude more-relevant people. Even just "5 tracks, anywhere" would be enough for that. If the general policy is specific enough to handle most possibilities well, the staff discretion would be left for the remaining small number of anomalies, such as the people already identified in this thread.

So your proposal is actually something like this I believe:

Hmm, I guess that must mean the last version I gave, 3 unrelated products? That was only one "version", not sure if it was the best really, and it doesn't need to be 3, or even any of those options at all.
I was just trying to come up with something with a fixed number, rather than a ratio, of contributions, more than just one, and less dependent on BGM.

So following SS advise i am here to point some....Points. xD

I recently added a Live action soundtrack by Naoki Sato, and soon after I added the main theme single

To which I reply:

Now, we are all aware the fact that it started to be a Game Music database, which got wider on its scope. And has always been having some conflicting issues, even when you are going by the guidelines, but someone decides, "Nah! Forbidden."
Years ago, I started to build Ichirou Nitta database here, and when I got to live action stuff i was denied, even when the guidelines was "related to game, anime or manga". It was related to the manga, so i was denied just because someone felt like saying "NO". Which lead to shut my mouth back then, when saw people doing the same as me, live action soundtrack entries based on a manga, and those were allowed. Like it or not, I call that favoritism.
Same happened again, just for example, Kenji Kawai, and a sentai soundtrack or Yasuharu Takanashi. "Sentai? Good God! NO!"
And again.... certain users were adding Sentai in here, and were allowed. Again... favoritism?
Look at this place now? Sentai Everywhere.
even Disney Animated Movies is everywhere... hell. Even just movies!

Explain me that, then?


On my point of view, for example, Kenji Kawai. Adding live action soundtracks here, gathering info you don't find correct at most places, keep it all in one place. Since I am a member here, I have been adding things to build some composers list of entries, and gather rare/hard/difficult info stuff you don't find anywhere. Some I really had to buy the cds/vinils to get those infos. ALWAYS... going by the guidelines.

But I digress....
Now let me give another example.
Imagine I am just a normal person that checks this website a lot. And I see "Oppai volleyball" soundtrack really exists. I am happy, and I buy it. But then I notice the vocal main theme is missing on the soundtrack. So, was that released or not?
(Believe me, it took a lot to find the correct thing, because "cao cao" is also a feudal chinese lord name.)
Although as SS said:
With all due respect, I think we are. Specific on the composers here, or anime/manga related, but still, we are already a Japanese movie soundtrack database.

So..... if the single for this movie (Oppai) is disregarded, even though those artist names have their own entries here, what reason can you point for a "NO"?

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Like you point out yourself, the current situation if a chaotic one. Everyone adds what he thinks suits the "character" of the DB, which is, due to missing (clear!) guidelines, a very subjective thing. And it's for that reason that we need this formalization of rules here.

What we don't need is now people coming here, and saying: But hey, we've been doing it like this forever, why should we stop now?

Once the formalization is accepted, and I guess it's the admins that decide this, it's valid and everyone has to adhere to it for all newly submitted albums.

Hope you are not talking about me!! Cause all Sentai stuff I added in past years were Watanabe and Kikuchi related (Kamen Rider, Ultraman) more various Mitsuko Horie original LP.
I have always mantain focus about official label catalogue, adding stuff which share main label suffix, that's why I was agree with your Nitta one.

nope. not you. I did not notice you even where doing that.
but i wont name anyone.

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So, I am struggling some with how to address your questions in the context of this conversation. You've submitted over 1200 albums though, and only have 3 outright rejections, so I don't think you are being singled out. There isn't any subjective favoritism here, but there are two factors always in play: 1) trusted editors and staff are not watched as closely, and even in the new guidelines have more leeway for submitting category 2 and 3, and 2) accurate and complete submissions were more likely to be kept even if they were a little out-of-scope, but the same album submitted by someone who omitted some of the credits would get deleted.

The point of these new rules is to define more clearly what albums people can submit.

Are you proposing that any album should be eligible provided that it shares some link (artist or product) with another album in the database? Do you think there should be any limits on that?

I think you are proposing that all of "Japanese Film/TV" should be a secondary visual art, maybe replacing the current more-restrictive Tokusatsu/childrens programming under Live-Action Visual Arts, and should cover all Japanese film and television. I don't believe there is a lot of support for that here, but we should discuss it anyway.

The reason is: does not meet the following eligibility requirement for Category 3. "If an artist has a composer or arranger credit for BGM in a Primary Visual Art (Category 1), then any album on which they are credited in any role is eligible provided it is not in the Forbidden Albums set (Category 4)."

As an aside, i did find a BGM credit for one of the composers, so that single has eligibility. I still want the onus to be on the submitter to preemptively defend eligibility. Easy enough to post the reason it should be included.

Not sure if Trusted Editors would even see it but can we put a field during submission that asks for submission eligibility? Like a simple freetext field or multi-select box that lets you pick categorie(s) or whatever. If it was me even without this I'd post in the forum thread for it with eligibility requirements but I don't see myself doing that because I don't really go out of my way to be the first to submit anything. I'll add Mondo or Data Disc releases if I see them in my email and they're not added to the DB yet, that's about it.

Funny..... weeks ago i was trying to find where the hell i could see how much submissions i had done xD. Thank you. now i know. xD
I don't want to be an ass or sound like it, far from that, but at the time, I am pretty sure it was more then 3 rejections, HOWEVER, maybe some were not rejected, and where hidden for staff only eyes (i am just assuming that part actually).
I did expressed my concerns to "Efindjia" at the time, and.. a lot about certain things around regarding the submissions.
but...
to see if i got it correct:
You are trying to say that my use of word "favoritism" is wrong and might be confuses with "Trusted Editors/Staff Members" Power use?
I can' accept that, as many times I did engage what I felt not fair to be done on those "waters".
So, my bad if i used the wrong wording.


I am also trying to figure out ways, I just have too much questions to dial them all up.

I am kinda lost here. I don't know if I am getting you correctly.
You mean, if an artist has an entry already here, I can add on his vgmdb list anything he had done, if his/her name is attached to it?
help me on this, because i got bit confused.



I was not really proposing... I was stating, that is kinda of a reality now. Tokusatsu, is "mainly" live action. :/
To be honest, I don't complain with these asian live action soundtracks.
I might be overboard with my thinking, and I am sorry if I am thinking incorrectly:
VGMDB is game music database that got a wide scope, one of them, which i do enjoy trying to build up, are the japanese musicians works.
I also considered VGMDB to be a good source of japanese sited soundtrack music. Be it anime, game or live action. OF COURSE.... depending on the composers listed here.

For example, are we gonna add a composer with not ties to anime, or game, if only he does is live action?
We could add a composer entry, let say on live action movie, from original source as manga.
For example... what I asked yesterday.- John Lissaur (whatever is name) composed the american soundtrack of the second pokemon movie. Should he had a entry here?
I THINK; he should, if his name is attached to something else RELEVANT on the scope of the website.
BUT, he did japanese movie soundtrack. Should we add that here?

I am sorry if I have complicated questions. its not that I want to add that here, i am just pulling examples up to try have some more feedback understanding on it.


So, if I understood right, unless the artists are not composers or arrangers, it is not eligible album/single even though it is attached to a "franchise" (fro lack of the right word, that came first.)

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Count me as one that would support this! Other db sites generally do not have these albums and if they do, they're not as detailed as the ones listed here on VGMdb (those that are currently allowed). I believe this to be because these albums are within the interests of many of us here, so I would love to see the scope expanded.

yeryry's question above is very interesting but yet unanswered.

As far as I understand, we are Ok to keep Japanese movies/TV dramas soundtracks as long as main composer has VGM/anime works here but not western movies. So, why then https://vgmdb.net/album/98468 is allowed? It's a western movie, so it should be deleted, no?

Then, onto yeryry's question. Koji Makaino, Tetsuya Komuro, etc... to name a few have tons of mainstream music in their works; in fact, much more than their anime/game works. Should we allow these works? It's not western mainstream music, so it should be ok, no?

Or the true reading of western mainstream music is any mainstream music? Then can we consider removing "western" here?

Then I would understand that "Oppai Volleyball" OST is allowed because main composer has VGM/anime OST in his discography but that we discard, let's say, Tetsuya Komuro own solo albums because it's neither related to category 1 and/or 2 even if he has works on anime OST.

From the time being, I feel Category 3 and 4 need to be more detailed or given some examples. I still not feel comfortable with them.

I accepted that entry. I would respond that I don't really have expertise in French film, so I don't know if this qualifies as a mainstream western film release. I felt it was unfamiliar enough to qualify, but I am open to removing it.

Yes. One of the major changes in this scope definition is that it allows those albums to be submitted.

I don't really consider that to be the true reading. But I think that we do need to be vigilant if some other non-western mainstream genre starts causing submission problems.

Tetsuya Komura solo albums are probably forbidden because I don't see any BGM composer/arranger credit on a category 1 album.

I could formalize this with some well-submitted examples from each category. I am not sure how to clarify category 4

Another point.
Documentaries.

Now that Daemonskald brought up that kenji kawai thing... :/

What about Documentaries soundtracks? Sure, Japanese composers , pretty and dandy, but...this https://vgmdb.net/album/57733 and all other Apocalypse , are french documentaries... so Western Music?
His Original Masters https://vgmdb.net/album/85206, collect his music from documentaries...
which is live action yes, but not MOVIES media.

And then we can go to another realm....
Asian Soundtracks....
Its not because its kenji kawai, but its the best example i have now.
He does scores for chinese and korean movies too. Key words:
Chinese Movie Scores / Korean Movie Scores. Ok, they are allowed since its an already named composer an all that.
But what in the future?

What about John Lissauer? he did some score for a pokemon movie. and did the soundtrack for a Japanese Horror Movie.
Not allowed?
(i get it. its not reason enough. just pointing that out anyway)

I quote Daemonskald

PS: I swear , the only thing that is getting confusion to me is allowing or not, that oppai volleybal single. Its getting on my nerves xDXD maybe because i dont see it ... as something that end of the world bad xD

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I think the parameters are open to everything as of now. Restrictions should be made, but then again, there is always something to back fire.

I think it can also be recalled a bit of "understanding" into what we are doing here.
For example, ANTHEM did songs fro xanadu and some falcom albums... and some other (devilman ova), ANTHEM is Naoto Shibata's band, Who was on konami in early 90ts doing those arrange battle albums, and other game stuff. I myself I am a huge fan of ANTHEM, but you dont see me adding all their albums here....
UNLESS.... one song from an album is related to a game or something.

For example...
Finish Samurai Metal Band "Whispered". one of their albums, they have a cover song for final fantasy 7 and Ginga (Nagareboshi Gin). So should I had that here just because it has both anime and game track?

No western Music? Ok.. fine. Then I should not at all added that. right?

I am just bringing some examples, to help get some results. so I put all in the table... while it comes to my mind

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I am going to move forward on this very soon. I'm mostly happy where things are at the moment, and the current discussion isn't producing any workable changes. The following adjustments have been made:

Added the Event classification to Category 2. We've had this available under categories for a while, and it is clearly defined.

The following changes are now live:

• When a normal album is submitted without a Category, the category displayed on the album page is "Artist Discography". (Color is still blue)
• When a doujin album is submitted without a Category, the category displayed on the album page is "Doujin Music". (Color is still blue, but we could change this)
• New category: "Live Action Visual Art". Note that only the albums described in the scope are eligible. Most TV and Movie albums should still be submitted without a category. (Color is pink)

Search and Filters work with then new category. There may be a few things I still need to modify to work with the new category.

For Products, now Other is pink and the new category Live Action is azure like Game. Is the Products color going to be adjusted?

I made Live Action blue like most movies show up in albums. Pondereing though, should I swap them so that Other is Blue and Live Action is Pink?

Just avoiding duplicate colors is good enough, but in my opinion as you mentioned, pink for Live Action products & blue for Other are better. Since they accord with the current album category coloring, they are easier to get which category they are for. Moreover I usually feel the blue color as unclassified or out-of-category when I see blue-titled albums and products.